Disposable hot pad



- 27, 1970 J, ALPERT ETAL dJ/IIIIII "I'I'III DISPOSABLEP HOT PAD Filed March 5, 1969 KMSKNVENTORS BY W Ww- ATTORNEYS.

United States Patent O 3,535,708 DISPOSABLE HOT PAD Robert J. Alpert, Princeton, and John W. Beekhuysen, Fairlawn, N.J., assignors to Blessings, Inc., Bound Brook, N.J., a corporation of Delaware Filed Mar. 5, 1969, Ser. No. 804,528

Int. Cl. A41d 13/08 U.S. Cl. 2-20 14 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION This invention is a pot holder or hot pad of low cost that makes it suitable as a disposable item for use in airplane galleys and other places where cleanliness is important and laundry is to be avoided.

The hot pad of this invention is preferably made with an outer cover consisting of a length of flattened tube with a longitudinal lap seam and made with non-woven fabric, such as non-woven cellulose facing material. The pad is filled with wadding or fluff, the expression wadding being used herein in a generic sense, held in place by crimping the open ends of the outer cover or by using adhesive that bonds layers of wadding together and to the outer cover. The material of the outer cover is treated to make it flame retardant.

Impregnation of the outer cover material with resin provides a surface with a high coeflicient of friction to prevent articles from slipping out of the grip of a person holding a hot item with the hot pad.

The construction of this invention makes practical the manufacture by inexpensive methods and from low cost material. Both are necessary to have the hot pad cost low enough to provide a disposable product.

Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will appear or be pointed out as the description proceeds.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING In the drawing, forming a part hereof, in which like reference characters indicate corresponding parts in all the views:

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a disposable hot pad made in accordance with this invention;

FIG. 2 is a greatly enlarged, fragmentary sectional view taken on the line 22 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view on the line 3-3 of FIG. 1, showing corrugations for holding the wadding and outside cover in assembled relation;

FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken on the line 4-4 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view on a substantially larger scale than FIG. 4 and showing the use of adhesive for holding the seam of the outside cover and for holding plies of the filling together;

FIG. 6 is a greatly enlarged sectional view taken on the line 66 of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 7 is a view similar to FIG. 2 but showing a modified form of the invention.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The drawing shows a hot pad 10 made with an outside cover 12 consisting of a flattened tube having an upper face 14 (FIG. 4) and a lower face 16 extending generally parallel to one another and of one-piece construction with one another at folds 18 where the tube is flattened. This tube 12 is preferably made of non-woven fabric, such as cellulose, and in the illustrated construction the tube 12 is made from a non-woven facing material having long reinforcing fibers or scrim, such fibers being indicated in FIG. 1 by the reference character 20. This makes the material stronger.

The expression non-Woven fabric is used herein to designate a web constructed of fibers held together chemically or mechanically, but not woven or knitted.

The tube 12 is filled with cellulose fluff or wadding 24, preferably made as a laminated filling and the hot pad is made with corrugations 26 extending generally parallel to one another in the direction of the length of the tube 12. In the illustrated construction, the tube 12 is corrugated at both ends and across its full width. This provides maximum mechanical strength for preventing tearing of the ends of the outer cover and for preventing the wadding 24 from becoming displaced longitudinally in the tube 12.

The corrugations 26 are preferably made by running the edges of the hot pad through corrugating rollers which corrugate the full thickness of the pad, including the wadding 24, as shown most clearly in FIG. 3.

The wadding 24 preferably extends for the full width of the inside of the flattened tube 12 so that the folds 18 contact with the top and bottom layers of wadding 24 to prevent shifting of the wadding in the flattened tube transversely of the length of the tube. The wadding cannot shift in the tube toward either fold 18 without compressing the wadding. With the lines of corrugations 26, and the wadding 24, extending across the full inside width of the flattened tube 12, the wadding remains in place within the tube without the use of any adhesive.

In the preferred construction, the layers of wadding 24 are held together by lines of intermittent incisions 29 which are formed in the wadding by a cutter before the tube 12 is folded around the wadding. The upper layer or layers of wadding are cut through and the displaced material is forced down into the incision or depression in the next layer below. The cutter is not long enough to penetrate the full thickness of the wadding, and the bottom of the wadding is supported during the incising so that the lower layers are merely indented; but the overall effect is to key the layers together.

The outer cover is treated to make it flame retardant and sufliciently flame retardant to protect the untreated wadding.

The tube 12 shown in the drawing is made with a lap seam 30 formed in the lower panel 16. This seam 30 extends longitudinally of the tube 12 and is preferably held closed by adhesive 32. The adhesive 32 terminates back from the edge of the outer lap of the seam 30 so that if the adhesive 32 is not evenly applied during the manufacture of the pad, there is no exposed adhesive on the outside. The adhesive 32 may penetrate through some of the layers of wadding 24 as indicated in FIG. 5.

The non-woven facing material of which the cover 10 is made is stiffly flexible. The stiffness is suflicient to hold the outer lap of the seam 30, where it extends beyond the adhesive 32, flat against the bottom of the pad above it and in line with the adhesively held part of the outer FIG. 7 shows a modified construction with parts that correspond to those of FIGS. l-6 indicated by the same reference character with a prime appended. A flattened tube 12' is the outside cover for layers of fluff or wadding 24'. The layers of wadding 24' are secured together along opposite edges by adhesive 36 which is used instead of the incised lines 29 of FIGS. 1-5 This adhesive can also be used to secure the wadding 24 to the outside cover 12' which is compressed along the opposite edges of the pad, as shown in FIG. 7 along a zone 38 to insure good contact of the layers and the adhesive 36.

The preferred embodiments have been illustrated and described and the invention is defined in the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A disposable hot pad including an outer cover made of a length of flattened tube of non-woven sheet material, filling comprising non-woven wadding within the flattened tube and covering substantially the entire area between the confronting faces of the flattened sides of the tube, and menas at an open end of the tube holding the wadding assembled and preventing longitudinal movement of the wadding in the tube.

2. The disposable hot pad described in claim 1 characterized by the tube having a lap seam extending longitudinally thereof in one of the flattened sides of the tube, and the tube being made of non-woven facing material containing longer reinforcing fibres extending generally circumfernetially of the flattened tube to impart added strength to the outer cover in a direction transverse of the seam.

3. The disposable hot pad described in claim 2 characterized by the outer cover having resin in the non-woven material to increase the coeflicient of friction of the cover and to prevent slipping of hot items gripped with said hot pad.

4. The disposable hot pad described in claim 1 characterized by the tube being crimped near one end and having the crimps interlocked, with other crimps in the filling to hold the filling against displacement lengthwise of the flattened tube, and to give the end of the pad a corrugated cross-section.

5. The disposable hot pad described in claim 1 characterized by means at both ends of the length of the flattened tube holding the filling against displacement lengthwise of said flattened tube.

6. The disposable hot pad described in claim 5 characterized by the filling comprising layers of non-woven cellulose material and said means holding the layers against lengthwise movement with respect to one another as well as against lengthwise movement with respect to the flattened tube.

7. The disposable hot pad described in claim 1 characterized by adhesive within the tube holding the filling against movement in the tube, the filling being made of non-woven wadding and at least some of the layers being held together by adhesive.

8. The disposable hot pad described in claim 7 characterized by the adhesive extending parallel to an end of the tube for preventing movement of the filling lengthwise of the tube, and the filling being held against other movement by the folds in the outer cover where the tube is flattened.

9. The disposable hot pad described in claim 2 characterized by the lap seam being secured together by adhesive and said adhesive terminating a substantial distance back from the outside edge of the lap seam.

10-. The disposable hot pad described in claim 9 characterized by the material of the flattened tube being stiff and the portion on the outside of the lap seam beyond the adhesive lying flat against the adjacent part of the outer cover.

11. The disposable hot pad described in claim 1 characterized by the wadding being in superimposed layers that are held against displacement parallel to their confronting faces by a line of intermittent indentations displacing material of the upper layers into the lower layers to key the layers together.

12. The disposable hot pad described in claim 11 characterized by the indentations being incisions through the top layer of the wadding and uncut depressions in the lowermost layers of the wadding.

13. The disposable hot pad described in claim 11 characterized by their being lines for intermittent indentations spaced back from opposite sides of the wadding, and the lines being along sides of the wadding that are adjacent to folds at opposite sides of the flattened tube.

14. The disposable hot pad described in claim 1 characterized by the outer cover being treated to make it fire retardant and having sufiicient fire retardant material thereon to protect from fire untreated wadding enclosed by the outer cover.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 580,148 4/1897 Staples 3895 1,349,112 8/1920 Weiss 16116 XR 2,068,182 1/1937 Jackson 2-2O 2,501,815 3/1950 Hamm 16116 JAMES R. BOLER, Primary Examiner U.S. Cl. X.R. 16-116 

